Fark-Roulette

Internet message boards are like spider webs for arachnids that feed on stupid. In spite of my general preference to stay away from them (for no one cares what you think, Internet!), I've developed a way for people to create betting pools based on some of the more predictable trends. I call it Fark-Roulette.

You need a group of friends, that agree to only visit a chosen website (Fark, in this case) once per day, as a group. Honor System enforced, as there's no way to keep people from accessing during the day. Read through the headlines, and each person chooses a good one. In this example, I'll pick "From the 'We've all wanted to do it' file. Man gets drunk and fires round after round into the company server" The betting begins!

I picked this headline, so I choose the Winning reference: Office Space, Image, The cast beating up the office printer. Then, I choose the number representing the earliest comment that I believe the chosen reference will appear. I pick the seventh comment, believing that it will appear early, but not quite immediately.

Another bettor believes I highly underestimate the speed at which this popular movie scene will appear in the comments, especially because this headline could have been ripped right from the script of Office Space. He chooses the 2nd Comment. Gutsy.

After everyone has placed their bets (with an agreed upon amount of money, peanuts, M&Ms, etc. in the pool,) You look in the comments and see where it appears. The person that guess correctly (or has the best Over/Under) wins. In the case of this thread, it showed up 3rd. I would lose to the man that bet on the 2nd comment.

Try it sometime. Even if you're just guessing by yourself. Whenever a headline about McDonalds appears, or another alarmist article about how our kids are getting FAAAT comes up, try to guess how soon this Fark-favored picture will show up:

Origins 2010 Breakdown

Returned, caught up on sleep, returned to work, and pictures have been uploaded to Flickr. Time for the final debriefing! I've decided it would be easier to follow categorically rather than chronologically this year, so here goes:

Hotels

In years past, I've cheaped out and stayed at the Hotel with the lowest price tag. I figured that I just needed a place to get a shower and sleep for a few hours before heading back into the fray, and it's not like I'm going to be there for longer than that. So why blow the budget on accommodations?

Last year, I found out why: the cheap places are ten miles out from the Convention center, making runs back and forth difficult with parking garages, and eating more of your time navigating through traffic that should be spent in the convention center. This is my vacation, I've already jumped on two planes each way, I want to do as little traveling as possible once I'm in town.

I also found that the little niceties are worth paying for, if you can afford it. I'm not picky about staying at places that are spotless, staff that's hospitable, or located next to a strip club, but when you advertise a continental breakfast, I expect more than a a bagel, a half eaten blueberry muffin and cold cereal with warm milk. This year I was at the Courtyard by Marriott, and instead of providing a complimentary continental breakfast, they had a proper breakfast buffet for $10. Eggs. Bacon. Biscuits and Gravy. Home Fries. Waffles hot off the Iron. The stuff of life! I was a little worried that my cohorts would find paying for breakfast not worth their while (they are still playing it cheap, with good reasons) but even they found this expense not only acceptable, but well worth the money. Indeed, it is the most important meal of the day, especially when the rest of that day will be spent walking around a convention center until 10 or 11 pm.

Another small thing I noticed from staying here is that they leave the Air Conditioning on right where you left it. Cheap places cut corners by turning off the AC when housekeeping arrives. Annoys the snot out of me, because I want to come in from the hot and humid outdoors and into an environment that is suitable for keeping fruits and vegetables fresh for a few days. I likes it cold. Don't turn off my AC! If I wanted it off, I would have done it myself!

Being as close to the convention center as we were, we were also able to partake of the shuttle service that GAMA had arranged for four of the hotels. Wonderful!

Air Travel

I purposely stagger my flights with 1-2 hours of layover between them so if the first one is delayed, I can still get on the second one and maybe even have my baggage follow me. This kind of backfires when the 2nd flight gets delayed and forces me to wait 2-3 hours for my next flight. Like what happened on this trip. Both ways.

Something must be wrong with Chicago Midway. From now on, it goes on the avoidance list with Atlanta.

After last year's debacle, I started flying Southwest Airlines exclusively. As much as I like not having to pay to check bags or having my flights totally screwed with and not told until two days before the trip (bastards) I don't like the non-assigned seating. I always end up at the end of the line which means I'm in the bitch seat the most (for the few of you that don't know, the bitch seat is the one that's between two other people). I have a friend who loves it, but that's only because they seat families after they seat section A (the A section are the people who paid extra to avoid the bitch seat) which means they still get prime seating options. Next time I'm at the ticketing counter I'll ask politely who I have to blow to get put into group A seating.

The Games

I wrote enough in the descriptions of the photos on Flickr, so I'll keep these brief.

Android

Here's a peek at Fantasy Flight Games' R&D discussions:

Allen: "How did the playtesters like it?"

Bob: "Pretty good, I guess. But there's still some things we need to work out."

A: "Oh? Did we not add enough game bits? I'm sure we can toss in a few tokens an counters in there somewhere..."

B: "No, it's not that. We have plenty of pieces. The problem is that the players all had a pretty good grasp of the rules by round three."

A: "Round three?!? I'd have thought they'd have that dull stare like a dairy cow that early into it."

B: "Yeah, I know, but they're getting the hang of it pretty fast. How can we add more complexity to this?"

A: "Well, we've been working on adding a subset of rules and mechanics for each player that work completely different depending on which of the starting pawns the players take."

B: "That might work! Let's try it!"

Car Wars

This is an adaptation of a miniatures game created by Steve Jackson Games, and is run at Origins and Gen Con by a gaming club that calls themselves the "Rogue Judges". They've adapted the rules to be slightly less complex (just slightly) and is played by moving around your little Matchbox car that has plastic guns glued onto it, and then shooting any other player's car that has the audacity to get within firing range. Fun times!

Illuminati

Have your Illuminati add ten powerful (or not so powerful) groups and/or organizations to it's power structure to control the world! There was one game where I had the KGB attempt to take control of Texas. Good times!

Magic: The Gathering

If you like sealed deck style play, but don't want to drop close to $30 for an event, you can play Mini-masters. Basically, it's sealed deck with two booster packs. And yes, you still have to make a deck that's at least 40 cards. This means you'll be playing 4 or 5 colors, have about 18 lands, and instead of choosing what twenty-three cards to play with, you'll pretty much be choosing which four cards NOT to play with.

Mini-masters is played single elimination style, and after each round, the winners receive one more booster pack to improve his or her deck, hopefully paring it down to a more managable three color deck.

The Red Dragon Inn

A quick and easy little game about a party of the common D&D archetypes celebrating at the local inn, having defeated the Dragon and ending the campaign. The goal is to be the last adventurer standing in the inn by not running out of money, and not getting so drunk that you fall on your ass. Not easy considering your companions will be buying you round after round, and occasionally roughing you up.

The mechanics are nothing especially memorable, but the theme and humor of the game is priceless. The Female Warrior will typically beat you up by playing cards like "It hurts more if you do it like this!" or "No more chain mail bikini jokes!". The Wizard's familiar (a white rabbit named "Pooky") will run around causing trouble or go on a drunken rampage. Or buy you a drink ("Pooky says you look thirsty!"). The priestess and rogue have similar functions with different jokes "The Goddess told me to do it!" or "I'm saving that money for the poor!" or "Uh, I think you made an error in dividing the treasure". Good stuff.

The Food

I've mentioned the benefit of eating a decent breakfast above, so I'll not belabor that point. Instead, let me tell you if you do breakfast right, on most days, you can get away with bottled water, Cliff bars, and beef jerky and not be hungry the rest of the day. But still, you'll want those few good meals with your cohorts to unwind, so let me tell you that across the street from the side entrance to the Convention Center, there is a great little brew pub called Barley's. Actually, I think I mentioned this last year, so let me just point out that it's still good, they still make their own beer, and is still worth the money. This year, they had a brew called Bloodthirst Pale, a wheat beer for the Summertime that's flavor with blood oranges. Yummy.

In spite of moving from the homemade limoncello to DeVito brand rotgut, we still decided to do the final wrap-up meal at Buca di Beppo. The Chicken Carbonara is EPIC, and puts mine to shame. Good sangria too.

About as much gaming as I could fit into four and a half days, meeting up with old friends, and Good Times all around. That should tide me over for a while... at least Until January when early bird registration for 2011 starts winding down, and I start counting down days again... Hooray!

"You have chosen... wisely."

The year was 1991. Maybe 1990. We had a sweet new computer with one of those speedy 386 processors inside them. It had a whopping 2MB of RAM, twice as much that was considered necessary for people not calculating trajectories of Scud Missiles. A color monitor. 256 colors, about 240 than previous generations of machines. Seething with power.

My father brought home a game that one of his coworkers had given him, copied from the original, as game publishers hadn't yet taken draconian steps to make their games difficult to pirate. It was so graphically intense that it had to be carried on FOUR floppy disks! One whole disk with its vast 1.44MB storage could only contain a fourth of the visual and audio adventure! It was one of those games that was made to capitalize on a recent blockbuster film, before such games were immediately assumed to suck. Indiana Jones, and the Last Crusade!

My sister and I sat and stared into the screen for hours trying to puzzle things out. This was made more difficult by the fact that on our first time through the game, we didn't find the Grail Diary left behind. Eventually we figured things out, puzzing through the catacombs, talking our way past the Nazi gaurds that infested castle Brunwald, flying and inevitably crashing the biplane.

The problem was that after we crashed the biplane, we attempted to steal the car (see the movie, its in there), the game itself would crash. The last disk that was copied was corrupted. Disheartened, we moved on with our lives, playing other games, taking up other hobbies. We found the strength to laugh again, even knowing that our quest for the grail was lost.

Over dramatic? Certainly, but if you ever read a book 90% of the way through and found the last 30 pages ripped out, you can imagine what this was like.

Years later, I move to Wyoming, buy a big powerful computer (like, a lot more than 2MB RAM), and when I realize I have to go at least as far as Evanston, maybe Rock Springs to pick up proper games, I discover Steam. Not content with their first game Half Life being the Game of the Year and all, Valve Studios set out to dominate the digital download and distribution of PC games. (yay, alliteration!)

I looked through the offerings of the steam store, and it looks like they acquired quite the back catalog. Even old games, like ones from Interplay and LucasArts... and then I saw it. an almost 20 year old game now only cost $4.99. The price of closure.

I download and install it. A few days later, The Grail is mine. At last, my own digital crusade comes to an end.

By the way, I mentioned before that when this game was first published, game developers didn't put layers of copy protection and CD-Keys on their games to prevent piracy. But they DID have measures meant to stop people from passing around copies of their games. Inside those huge textbook sized boxes that were industry standard until about 2000 or so, the publishers dumped all kinds of manuals and supplemental paperwork into those big boxes. Things like maps, histories of the game world, and often, as in the case of The Last Crusade, handwritten "Journals" written in persona of the game's characters.

In this instance, it was half of Henry Jones Sr's Grail Diary. Most of it was fluff, but interesting fluff. But in order to keep pirates at bay (pun unintended, but welcome) the games themselves referenced this documentation in important ways. To find out which grail was the wise choice at the end, I had to read a few pages from the handwritten "Grail Diary" to find out which one it was. I remember playing Battle Chess and Carmen Sandiego and having to type in entries from their paperwork and manuals. the xth Entry on page y. Things like that.

And now, John Williams will play me out:

Follow Up on my New Computer

One year after I really wanted to, I finally replaced my Laptop with the Glowy Blue Beast Box for my primary computer. Take a moment to stare at The Awesomeness:

Oooooh, pretty!

So, what did I do first? Well, let's go through the list chronologically:

1. Connect to the Internet
2. Got Microsoft.com to order my free upgrade to Windows 7
3. Installed Zone Alarm
4. Played a game of Pox Nora (a game that's not graphically intense, and STILL manages to send my laptop's CPU into overdrive, overheating, and forced shutdown)
5. Downloaded Microsoft's free anti-virus utility recommended by a coworker.
6. Attempted to install aforementioned tool, installer froze and the process had to be killed
7. Succeeded installation of tool, another freeze-up and kill episode on updating it
8. Curse Microsoft
9. Attempted to install one of them new-fangled MMORPG thingies that are all the rage with the kids these days. The installer freezes and locks up, much like the Anti-Virus tool.
10. Repeat previous step 4-5 times; curse Microsoft
11. Begin to suspect that the ZoneAlarm program mentioned in step 3 was having difficulty on a 64-bit system, being a 32-bit progam and all.
12. Uninstall ZoneAlarm, reboot, subsequent attempts to install MMORPG and run Anti-Virus are successful
13. Sheepishly recant curses directed at Microsoft
14. Played through the Eve-Online Tutorial. Remembers how it feels to be impressed by Good Graphics.

And so, the adventure continues. I'm going to have to hook up this laser printer too, and see how that action works.
So, between the myriad PC games that are now open to me, the next Wheel of Time book that came out two days ago, and the fact that I just got another coworker addicted to another old hobby of mine (he was an easy sell) My leisure time is booked until further notice. At least it's getting cold now, so I have a good excuse to stay indoors all day! :-)

Scattershot Post - Two Barrels of Word Pellets

Several items, none that can fill out an entire post. You know the drill:

• In Salt Lake City, there is a store called Game Night Games that specializes in European board games, and other semi-obscure games. Meaning you wont find them at Toys R' Us between Chutes and Ladders and Sorry. The have open tables on weekends, so I learned how to play Puerto Rico with some like minded strangers. I'm liking Salt Lake more and more these days.
• In electronic gaming, Starcraft II recently was pushed back to a release in the first have of 2010, and that makes me sad. I wanted a Zergling rush for Christmas. (For those of you unfamiliar with the terminology, it's kinda like this).
• A few weeks ago, I got the news that Dabel Brothers Publishing are going to finish the comic book series based on Robert Jordan's The New Spring. This series was first published by Red Eagle Entertainment and illustrated by the Dabel Brothers, but some business SNAFU kept the last issues from being completed. So now, the Brother's are publishing it themselves, and they are also illustrating/publishing the comic book based on the Wheel of Time series. I just got the first taste of it in the mail today. Friggin Sweet.
• I'm enjoying the whole karaoke master gig, but some nights, the drunken idiots are out in force. This past Friday was one of those nights. Some sloppy-drunk girl got belted by some angry-drunk guy, and some stupid-drunk dude just couldn't get it in his head that I. Don't. Have. Any. Music. From. Crystal Dew. English, mother****er, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!?!?
• I'm juggling three consecutive weekends involving a wedding in Pittsburgh, a move to another apartment, and a visit from my sister. When it rains, it pours.
• And finally, here's a band that I've recently discovered: Streetlight Manifesto. Any band that lists the Squirrel Nut Zippers as an influence must be good.

Origins '09 - Friday, Saturday, and Sunday

After we returned from White Castle, we returned to the hotel, where I proptly recieved a call from my Brothers in Arms (Mito, Tyler, and Kress) letting me know they have arrived. So instead of sleeping, we stayed up, and played a few games of MTG and Acquire, except Tyler, who doesn't have the fortitiute of consiousness to do be up more than 20 hours at a time.

A note about the Acquire game: I purchased one of the old 1968 era versions of the game that I had been seeking for a while now. This is the one with the wooden tiles instead of the plastic ones, but you can still tell that the graphic design was very 1960's era, and not the hippie psychadelic style. More like the stodgy boardroom style. Rather bland and minimalist. Still, I think it's cool. I also got a free copy of Stonehenge with that purchase, which is an anthology boardgame where 5 different designers were given the Stonehenge themed playing pieces and told to make a game around them. I'll have to give it a closer look later.

So, the next morning we fought off fatigue, and returned to gaming. I learned how to play this Dominion game everyone keeps talking about, and demanded to know why no one told me about it sooner. How it works is everyone gets a deck of 10 cards that consists of 7 coins and 3 victory points, and each turn they must draw 5 cards from this deck, and use those cards to buy more stuff, and eventually more victory points.

What I don't understand is the constant comparisons people make to Magic the Gathering. Sure each player has his own deck of cards, and you have to build that deck, but the mechanics and means of doing so are wildly different. It's like comparing Acquire to Monopoly, becuase they both use paper money, or to Scrabble, becuase they both have tiles that are placed on gridded board. And don't even get me started on the people who have compared Settlers of Catan and Risk. Not. Even. Close.

So after learning one awesome game, I decided to learn another: Munchkin Quest.

The orginal Munchkin card game was essetially an abstract mock-up of a typical Fantasy Role playing session, modeled after what some of the sillier games degenerated to: Burst through doors Leeroy Jenkins style, recklessly kill whatever lived inside, take their stuff, and maybe steal something from your friend. Or stab him in the back.

Munchkin Quest lessens the abstraction by giving you a real dungeon, with all of the humor, oddball items, and silly monsters we've come to expect.

click to enlarge

After that, I wandered around the vendor's hall to covent some wicked-cool furniture before my next game which was Risk 2210, which I think I've mentioned before, so I'll not discuss further. But seriously, the Table I saw in the exhibit hall. Wow.

After Risk 2210, we returned to the hotel again, and got some actual sleep, lest we pass out on Saturday.

Saturday, I played a little Dungeons and Dragons and Chess with Mito, which was good times. Mito's certainly getting better at chess, as he mangaged to beat me yet again (but I still got best of 3).

I also tried another game which was similar to Munchkin Quest in gameplay, called Descent:

This is like an advanced version of HeroQuest, if anyone has everplayed that when they were a kid. It's made by Fantasy Flight games, who are know for making LARGE detailed boardgames with Large, detailed pricetags. I've often seen this one retail for 80 bucks! they also make the Starcraft Boardgame which I got for a friend a year or two ago, and I think he's played it, like once. It's not something you bring out unless you and at least two more people are prepared to spend a day playing it. Oy.

Anyway, Sunday got cut short between us sleeping in, having difficulty with Kress's vehicle, and Delta bumping my flight forward two hours. But we did make time to go to Buca di Beppo's for lunch, which was tasty as always. With a few minor, and one major exception...

In an order to consolidate the look and feel of all the Bucca di Beppo franchises, they standardized some of the pictures and art on the wall (It's still mostly the same, I didn't notice it until the waitress brought it up.), the paper placemat menus have been replaced by more professionally printed full color menu (I prefered the rustic touch of the placemat-menu, but no big deal) and they no longer make their own limoncello, but instead serve Danny DiVito's Brand (RAGE!)

Danny's brand is more harsh tasting, which is something that I usually wouldn't mind in a strong liquor, but not limoncello. It tastes like a bunch of lemons steeped in antifreeze, and Danny DeVito's sweat. Basically, I'm in agreement with these folks at the A.V. Club. Bleh. I'm still amazed that he landed this marketing deal by showing up drunk (or with a hangover) on the View.

So, that's how I spent my summer vacation. And now, I think it's high time to begin looking to do something outdoorsy before the season draws to a close. Get a little fresh air in me. Maybe it doesn't burn as much as they say. :-)

Until then, keep casting Magic Missile at the Darkness!

Origins '09 - Wednesday and Thursday

Wednesday morning, I stopped at the local Maverik for Coffee and Breakfast. In with the breakfast sandwiches, there was a breadless entry labeled "Atkins", which as far as I can tell, means that someone made more eggs and bacon then they had bread for.

Two uneventful hours on the road, follow by five more in the air (and taking pictures of the amusing signage and T-Shirts) puts me in Columbus, where I take a cab to the Convention Center and meet up with Ryan (He was the groom in the March Wedding, FYI). I take it easy that night, and just played with the Battletech pods and sidkicked for Ryan in his Magic: The Gathering Sealed Deck game.

The Battletech pods are basicl sit-down style Arcade cabinets LANed up together so you can shoot down other conventioneers. Weapons take a while to recharge, with the exact time it takes being inversely proportional to the power of the weapon. i.e., you're Tactical Nerf Balistic Missiles will take less time to charge than the shoulder mounted Pwnage Cannon of the Gods. Each of those pods represents a different Mech with different guns, missles, armor and speed.

Then, a trip to the Columbus, OH Waffle House, for aggressively priced butter drowned foodstuffs! Hooray! (BTW, for my Origins travel compainions from years past, they renamed The Golden Fox. It's now Lollipops. I'm guessing it was a change of owership or something.)

The next morning, we head back in. Ryan and Jill (his new wife) play Fluxx, while I play a Carcassone tornament. There wasn't many people interested in this one, as It was me versus two other people. I came in last, but it was still a good match. I was a little surprised they allowed four hours for a one round tournament. Even with five players, A game wouldn't take more than two horus.

With the 3 hours of extra time I hadn't planned on, I join Ryan and Jill in their game of Redneck Life. The object of the game is to end the game with the most teeth. But along the way, you'll lose several of them to accidents involving Beer, Vehicles, Fights, or a combination of them.

As you spiral around the board, you'll encounter extra cash, and probably even more expenses that you're job at the Bait n' Beer can't cover, so you'll have to take out payday loans at the Check n' Scam to make ends meet. You'll get married, divorced, married again (and inheirit a bunch of stepkids named Daryl) and buy a few fantastic cars and homes. After the game, we had a bit of dinner at Barley's Brewpub (conviently across the road from the exit/entrance). If your ever in the Arena District for any reason, go here and try their beer. This is good stuff!

After dinner, Ryan and I returned to the convention center to do battle in a Ravnica Sealed Deck event, with complete sets of Ravnica, Guildpact, or Dissension awared to the top 4. [MTG Nerdery warning!] Surprsingly, I placed 4th thanks to a good mix of beaters on the ground and in the skys, including Loxodon Heirarch, Watchwolf, Siege Wurm, Golgari Rotwurm, Assult Zepplid, Servent of Vhitu-Gazi, and a Hunted Lammasu, supported with a Condemn, Douse in Gloom, and Disembowl. Between the three bouncelands, two signets, and a Breeding Pool I opened (yay, shocklands!) I was able to play every color except red. Honestly, I had another bounceland and signet to play red, if I had wanted to, but the sweetness I got in the other colors left a lot to be desired in red. So, after losing one match in the Swiss rounds and again in the top 4 playoffs to a guy packing a leafdrake roost and an Obnivian (The frog that turns things into 3/3 frogs) I walked away with a complete set of Dissension. So, hooray for me!

After a late night dinner at White Castle, we returned to the Hotel to get some sleep. Or, that's what I intended to do at least...

More about that in the next post.

Remain Steadfast, Travelers...

...for your journey shall be fraught with peril! Even now, as the Forces of Evil block your path and force us to take the alternate road, you must hold strong. Keep your weapons close, fill your mind with arcane lore, and for Bahaumat's Sake, DO NOT feed the Dragons. The barroom braggarts' tales of distracting blue dragons with candy have been greatly embellished.

Pack rations! The City is full of those that would gouge travelers by hawking pretzels and corn-dogs for 10 gold crowns each! Be civil! We have all observed drunken man-children cast into their own rage after losing a game of Tavern-Stones! Such conduct is unbecoming of Fate's Children, such as yourselves! Rest yourselves each night, for your minds and bodies cannot function to their full potential on two hours sleep. I was pleased to hear that your accommodations this year are less flea ridden than in years past.

Take heart, for even in spite of all these things, your destiny is not as dark as it may seem now. In the blur of the City, your eyes may fool you into making rash and fearful choices. The hordes of zombies are just pasty nerds that have cast aside the basic social norms of hygiene. The sneering warriors? Merely LARPers with impressive, yet harmless, foam covered weaponry. And years of study and research have long since disproved the theory of Anomalous Ill-Luck events: The dice ARE NOT trying to kill you.

Be wary, be safe, and we shall meet again! I would hear of your adventures over gobblets of fine Arevindor wine. Fare Thee Well, And may the Pantheon of Light favor your quest!

I'm leaving for Origins today. I hope to post now and then when I can if the wi-fi at the hotel is free. And now, to offset yesterdays unpleasantness, Reel Big Fish return to sing A-Ha's Take On Me, with 100% less F-Bombs than yeserday's offering!

Wizards of the Coast Moves My Cheese

Relevance Warning: For those of you haven't played Magic: The Gathering before, this post will be of no use to you. We're not only going to discuss nerdular games, but we're going to discuss detailed rules of nerdular games. You're wasting your time here when you could be wasting time at one of many other places on the Internet. You should probably check some of those out right now and move along.

For all the Planeswalkers still with me, read on.

Today, WotC announced a fairly dramatic change to the rules of Magic: The Gathering. In terms of predicted public outcry, I think this ranks just above the 8th Edition Card Facelift and just below the 6th Edition Rules Change which was more sweeping that this one. They also didn't give much notice on this one either. July 11th, it goes into effect. (It goes into effect July 29th on MTGO. Not that I give a rat's behind.)

So, let's take a look-see, shall we?

Statement of purpose: The rules ought to be tweeked in a way so that they function more intuititvely, in such a way that new player's expectations are met, and reasonable assumptions are typically correct. This dovetails with their efforts to make the flavor aspects of the game (card names, creature types) more familiar and understandable (i.e. changing phrasing like "local enchantment" to "enchantment - aura").

Sounds reasonable to me. So what's changing?

1) Simultanious Mulligans

What Should happen: Each player draws their starting hand of 7 cards. The player who is going first looks at hand, decides it sucks, and says "I'm going to mulligan down to 6." He reshuffles and draws 6 cards. "Still sucks. I'm going to 5". He reshuffles and goes to 5. "Ok, I'll take it.". Then and only then does the other player decided whether or not to mulligan his inital hand of seven cards, and continue to redeal his hand or keep as above.

How it really happens:

Player 1: "My hand sucks. I'm drawing 6."

Player 2: "Yeah, mine too. I'll do the same"

Both players reshuffle and draw 6 cards without waiting for the other one.

The Change: They're going to make what Really Happens into How It Should Happen.

My two cents: Yeah, this is no big deal, and it helps to move things along. I usually forget that I'm supposed to wait anyway.

2) Terminology Changes

Old and Busted: the In-Play zone; Play a Spell; Play an ability; Remove From Game.

New Hotness: The Battlefield; Cast a Spell; Activate an ability; Exile

My two cents: Making the same sound cooler and more flavorful while simplifying basic concepts is always fine by me. This change is mostly cosmetic, except that cards that are Removed from the Game Exiled are no longer considered to be "Outside the Game" so Burning Wish, Ring of Ma'ruf and the like can no longer retrieve a creature hit with a Swords to Plowshares. Not a big deal.

3) Mana - Floating it, and burning from it

Mana used to last up through the end of the phase, now it only persists until the end of the step. So, if you tap an Island for a blue before you declare attackers in the Combat Phase, it's vanished by the time your opponent is declaring blockers.

But you no longer take mana burn from it. It just dissapears into a puff of mystical mojo.

My two cents: The Solitary Confinement Deck I love so very much will take a hit becuase I can't maniupulate my life total for Convalescent Care via mana burn, but I can get on board with this change.

4) Token ownership

How it used to work: I play Hunted Dragon. I get a fat, cheap dragon and you get a trio of 2/2 white knights with first strike. Then I play Brand, which gives me control of your Knights, becuase I own them even though you control them. "Wait, what?" Yeah, my Dragon made them when they came into play, so they got my name stamped on them. Brand makes them mine.

How it's going to work: I play Hunted Dragon. I get discount dragon, you get knights. I play Brand. The knights shrug, unimpressed. They are owned by the person that controls them when they came into play.

My Two Cents: As a person that never exploited ownership of tokens, I'm fine with making this more logical to minds of new players.

5) Combat Damage no longer uses the Stack

I was starting to think there'd be nothing in these changes that would send me into a fit of Fanboy Rage. Then I read this part.

How it used to work: I attack with an Air Elemental (4/4) for 4. Opponent blocks with a pair of Wild Griffins (2/2). I assign two damage to each of them, each Griffin assigns two damage to the Air Elemental for a total of four enough to kill it. I play Unsummon on my Air Elemental, rescuing it from its fate, while the Griffins take two damage each, and die from the Elemental that had been winked out of existance for a moment.

How it's going to work: I attack with the Elemental, he blocks with the Griffins. I can either unsummon the elemental before damage is delt, and his Griffins live, or I can lose my Elemental and he loses his Griffins. Unsummon can no longer be timed in such a way that I can take out both his Griffins and save my Elemental from the graveyard. (note: at this point, I'd just unsummon one of his Griffins so my elemental would live, and I'd take out at least one Griffin.)

My two cents: OMGWTFBBQ?!?!?!!!1 WIZTARD$ OF TEH COST IZ KILLIN THE GAME IM NEVER BYING ANUTHR CARD EVAR AGAIN THAY SUXX!! Wha- woah... sorry. Ok, I regained control now. Sorry, that's a side of me I try my best to hide.

But serisously, I loved the ability to snatch my creatures away while still dealing damage to them, or use a self-sacrifice ability after damage is on the stack to kill two birds with one stone. This one is going to take some getting used to.

Additionally, they mentioned that instead of attacking creatures distributing damage to blockers as desired, they now have to be lined up in a queue or some nonsenese. I'm not going to try to articulate those changes, but here's the gist of it: if my 4/4 Beastie is blocked by a pair of 3/3 Hill Giants, I can't deal two to each of them and finish them off with a Tremor. Now, I have to assign 3 to one of them, and 1 to the other one. Meh.

6) Deathtouch and Lifelink

How Deathtouch used to work: Your Basilisk with deathtouch is blocked by my Drudge Skeletons with Regeneration for a Black mana. I have to regenerated it twice. Once for leathal damage, and once for the Deathtouch ability.

How Deathtouch is going to work: Same combat situation as above, I only have to regenerate it once.

How Lifelink used to work: I'm at two life, you attack with a pair of 2/2 Grey Ogres. I only have one 2/2 creature with Lifelink. I block an Ogre, and take two damage. I die before the two life I'd gain from the lifelink triggered ability resolves.

How Lifelink is going to work: Same combat situation as above, same blocks as above. Ogre deals two damage to me, but my Lifelinked creature dealt two damage at the same time, and gained life at the same time. I'm still alive at two life (I took two damage, and gained two life). Although now I've lost my creature and you've lost an Ogre.

My Two Cents: I like it. It just makes more sense than some oddball triggered ability that doesn't resolve before I die. Which is what they were going for.

So, for the three of you that read this post and care, let me know what you think in the comments.

In Which Fuzzy Endorses his Hobbies

As a displaced tabletop game enthusiast, I have a lot of difficulties finding other players out here in cowboy country. All of my peers have at least two children under the age of 5, or are too busy working nights and weekends on the family ranch (seriously). As a result, I have to resort to the Internet to find opponents. And this is where I plug GameTableOnline. 

Originally I discovered this site after Wizards of the Coast contracted the guys that ran GameTable to develop Java versions of some of their I.P. for use with Gleemax, which was to be a social networking site for gamers. 

Gamer... Social... Networking... Site. Ugh, I'm not sure if I can make that sound any more lame.

The games they built for WotC were Acquire (my favorite), Robo Rally, Vegas Showdown, Guillotine, and the most popular one to date: Axis and Allies. WotC decided that between everything else they were trying to focus (such as the 4th Edition of Dungeons and Dragons, which was getting ready to launch at the time), they decided to cut loose some projects, including the Gleemax site. Rather than let some pretty good electronic versions of their games dissapear, they allowed GameTable to post them on their own site.

They also have a few traditional board games such as Chess, Backgammon, etc, and other games from independent developers.

Right now, they are looking to change over to a subscription based business model so they can make their product sustainable. I think it's worth at least a couple bucks a month just for Acquire alone. Check it out.

And in the hopes of motivating some of my friends back home, I'll say these three words: Kill Dr. Lucky!

Don't Be a Dick

So I've been playing more Acquire at GameTable Online, and it gave me yet another reminder of why I haven't bothered to pickup World of Warcraft, or any other MMORPGs. The guys behind Penny Arcade illustrate it better than I could describe it.

My sister keeps telling me that you can shut off the global chat, so you can only communicate with those on your friend list, or channel, or whatever, but something about the action of joining a game with the world, and then shutting out the world just seems counter-intuitive. If I'm going to play a game with only a handful of friends, I'd rather do that Face-to-Face. In fact, I'm taking three days off from work, and flying 1400 miles to do this with total strangers! (Yes, another Origins plug, but I'm excited. Sorry.)

The worst part is how they drag you down into their petty quest to inform you what and idiot you are to you and everyone who will listen. In most other situations, you'd be the better person, give in, or just walk away with a feeling of pity for the idiot. But again, webcomics describe it better:

image courtesy of (xkcd) (permalink)

True, these jackasses also pop up face to face at times, but far less. In addition, they are shunned by others who would rather play games face to face, and not have to deal with their bullshit, and often even their own friends disavow them out of embarrassment. Remember: It's easier to be an asshole to words than people.

Getting My Nerd On

This weekend, through the Magic of the the Intarwebs, I'm going to join my old Steel City friends online for a Dungeons & Dragons session. Also my first time playing with the 4th Edition Rules.

At the end of this month, me and another co-worker will be attending an organized play event for Magic: the Gathering. I'm hoping for a good draft game after dumping the online game due to WotC's tone deaf response to my customer service complaint.

And this Summer, I'll be squandering three or four of my five vacation days to attend Origins, one of my favorite events that I had to miss out on last year. At last, I'm beginning to indulge in some geektastic hobbies, the like of which are rarely seen in This part of the country.

One last thing about Origins, they have a program where you can get one free Convention Badge good for full access to the show if they have never attended Origins before, with the purchase of another full access badge. Who wants to geek out with Fuzzy this June 24th-28th?

I know a lot of you have other commitments or limitations, but if any of you who have never been to Origins wants to go, and is able to go to Columbus, OH that weekend send me an email. The badge has to be reserved with the early bird registration, and that ends January 11th, so decided quickly!

The Games I Play

Back in April, I finally bought one of them new-fangled next-gen video game consoles that are all the rage among the kids these days, specifically, a PlayStation 3. After I found out that the cheaper 40GB $400 version of the PS3, which replaced the $600, 60GB version, had the backwards compatibility feature removed, I also purchased a PS2. I guess they were bitter that people weren't buying enough of their overpriced hardware, so they decided to make the newer cheaper one suck a little more, just as a giant "screw you!" to their market.

Anyway, the games I've played so far:

Assassin's Creed: If you buy a PS3, know that it has the most advanced visual capabilities than any other of it's cousins. Therefore, you'll need one Eye Candy game to showcase that feature. This is that game.

Large cities with hundreds of little virtual people walking about, some rabble rousing, some beg for coins intrusively, some are mentally ill and belligerent, some pimping their wares at storefronts, and others are soldiers that will attack you if you engage in activities that are anti-social. Like killing people. They frown on that.

The buildings are large and beautifully rendered, and serve as monkey bars for you to climb on. The attention to detail in how your character climbs seamlessly up cathedrals and castles is incredible, especially when you finish off a climb with the incredible Leap of Faith. Watching Altair jump off a building from hundreds of feet into a hay filled cart just doesn't get old, at least not for a while.

The visuals are important because you'll need something pretty to look at in order to distract you from how shallow the actual game play is. Ben "Yahtzee" Crosshaw summed the whole thing nicely in one of the few reviews of his that I wholeheartedly agree with (warning: Yahtzee works Blue!), but in summation, game play is repetitive, the fighting is oversimplified, in the first half of the game, and for a game that has "Assassin" in the title, there's woefully few actual Assassinations. It's worth playing through once, but it has zero replay value.

The Orange Box: Let me tells you, I love me some Half-Life. I think it's because the Protagonist, Gordon Freeman, is what all nerds secretly want to be. He's an Uber-Nerd with a PhD in Hypothetical Physics, who accidentally opened a portal to another dimension through which hostile alien life forms immediately poured through, at which point he begins hacking and shooting through all of them, as well as the military task force sent to destroy the aliens and silence all of Gordon's colleagues.

What part of that description does not sound awesome?

Also in the Orange Box is Team Fortress 2, which, until it's release, was the only game in production that could compare with the Vaporware status of Duke Nukem Forever (Still waiting for that one!) It's typical capture the flag gameplay with nine unique feeling, and yet balanced classes. As for the tone of the game, just watch the "Meet the _____" movies here. Amusing.

And last but not least, Portal. There's nothing I can do to praise this game more than the rest of the Internet has, so for those few who still haven't heard of this game (probably limited to my parents) here's the trailer that dropped my jaw the first time I saw it.

Devil May Cry 4: This series is notorious for being incredibly difficult, but I think they got the difficulty curve adjusted just right this time. Combat is entertaining, especially when you see how many times you can slash/stab/shoot/slam an enemy in the air before you touch the ground. The story is... well, who cares. Swordplay, Magic Demon Arm of Justice, and general badassery abound. It just feels satisfying.

Ninja Gaiden Sigma: What is the most deadly enemy an Ninja can face? Dragons? Samurai? Pirates? No, the most deadly enemy a Ninja can battle, at least in this game, is Bad Camera Angles. Nothing is more fatal to the protagonist than a viewpoint that simply refuses to show the person that is jamming a katana up your behind. Devil May Cry's Camera issues were sightly annoying, at worst, and they ironed most of them out after the first game. This game just refuses to cooperate at all. I stopped playing it at the end of the second level. It's just not worth my time.

That's all for now. next time, PS2 games!

Ready to Rumble

Portland Studios, a company where one of my old High School Buddies works at, has finally developed presidential contest that I can get behind.

Presidential Prize Fight, in game play, is similar to most of the other Flash boxing games on third rate websites, programmed by some 20 year old who watches too much MSNBC or Fox News. These guys, having some artistic integrity, made it a little more complicated.

Although the fighting itself is simple, you first need to pick the state to hold the match in. Each win in that state gets you one more "vote", and if your candidate leads that State by more than 5% it's yours, provided the other candidate doesn't take it back.

Also, in states that have traditionally voted for one party, the opposing candidate will have a more difficult fight, because the "local hero" will have fight harder on his turf.

Mix in some political factoids for each state, and you have a few minutes of entertainment for this evening. Check it out.

Missing Out

When I took a job in Wyoming, I knew there would be sacrifices, especially the first year. One of those is manifisting itself right now.

Why am I not here, getting my geek on at this very moment? I could be casting magic missiles at the darkness, or other such fun :-(

Gaming Humor

Original Context

I Totally Thought of it First!

I had this great idea for a board game. Sort of a party game where everyone gets a fist full of various dice. These dice would be rolled in order to simulate a combat system sometimes, or try to roll certain numbers to accomplish goals that vary from scoring points, or gaining/loseing dice to roll in order to win. I haddn't worked out all the details, but essientially, the game would just be a vehicle for rolling fistfuls of dice. I thought it was clever.

But darn it all, if somebody else didn't think of it first!

Back to my day job, then.

Scatter Shot Post - 04/09/2008

Let's jump right in shall we?

• Within three weeks of review day, we lost two employees. I'll not post the circumstances of each on the Intarwebs, but now we're looking for one entry level and one experienced programmer position in the IT department at our company, so those of you who know me, contact me for details if you're interested.
• On weekends, I often visit a co-workers home and play board games with his family. His wife is a gentle soul, that doesn't have a competitive bone in her body, and she's made alternate rules to Settlers of Catan. The short of it is, the robber is out of the game, and anyone who rolls a 7 gets a free resource of his/her choice. Sounds fun on the surface, until you realize that it nullifies the ONLY way a person can directly affect the game. Way to destroy a game dynamic, there.
• In the IT department, we have two or three chocoholics, the majority of whom are Mormons. I guess when your religion forbids alcohol and caffine, chocolate is the closest thing to a vice that you're allowed to have.
• In other game news, Magic Online has shut down its 2.5 servers, and will go up as the new and improved Magic Online 3.0 server. As someone who has dealt with a server crash in the middle of a draft several times, I'll be looking forward to something that has a bit more stability.
• It's April. It snowed here (lightly) for three of the last five days. I'm not pleased.

That's it for now. Good day!

D&D Miniatures: Dungeons of Dread

About two weeks ago I played with the new miniautres with the new rules of D&D minis. I was gonna talk about it in this post, but I just uploaded some picutres to my Flickr account and noted them heavily, so I'm just linking to that. enjoy!

Global Conquest

Today I visit a co-worker and his family for a game of Risk, becuase every few months or so, I need a good reminder of why I hate it. Several of you have your own list like this; here's mine.

First, the game is a bit dependent on turn order. whoever goes first, has a chance to conquer other players' territories, which lowers the amount of reinforcments a they get, while the first player gets the maximum amount, becuase by virtue of the first turn, he didn't have any of his terriorties conquered.

Second, do you know what the only thing worse than being eliminated early is? Being nearly wiped out then left for dead with no hope of a comeback.

Third, there's always that weak player in the game who get beaten back to a small corner of the board. This player has no hope for conquest and can't gain a foothold, but his personal quest for relevance, he decides to put his armies on on territory and make hopeless push into oblivion, his sole purpose to wreck the game balance and somehow make a point to THE MAN!!! Becuase THE MAN has been keeping him down, or something. Typically, I find my territories next to this player's territories a lot.

And last, the constant attrition in the endgame. The the last two players' armies wax and wane as they each turn in card sets for 30, 35, 40 or more armies, everybody tyring to make that last push until someone turns in that set that gives them enough force to wipe the map clean. Strategy in this last part is irrelevant. Really, when it's down to two players, they should just roll the dice 101 times, note who got the highest outcome for each roll. Whoever 'wins' the most rolls, Wins the game.

Admitedly, few of these particular occurences happened today, and I'm probably rubbing some Risk die-hards the wrong way, who'll tell me about how they win games with 5-star general calibur battle plans, and the delicate placements of their troops. Yeah, in a big game, that's more important, but in the end, it's who has more guys, and if that's too close, it's who has luckier dice. I'm sure a lot of you want to post a rebuttal, so go ahead, the comments are open.

As for me, I'm hoping to play more Risk 2210, as it addresses some of the above issues:

• You have to bid for turn order (using Energy, a new resource).
• The game only lasts for 5 rounds, after which everyone counts up points (primarily based on territories and continents controlled) so once you get the hang of it, games no longer take all day.
• Before the game begins, 4 random territories have been devistated by nuclear war, and are impassible and cannot be occupied. In addition to the cool nuclear fallout flavor, this gave subtle changes to board each time and warp common strategies just enough to make things interesting without wrecking things.
• Have you ever head this in a game of Risk?

Defender: **Confidently** "Bam, I rolled a 6."

Attacker: "I roll a 7. I win."

Defender: **Crestfallen** "... but... but... I rolled a 6... I'm defending :-( "

Attacker: "Yes, and I rolled a 7. Pick him up. It's my land now!"

Certain situations let you roll 8-sided dice. The mighty defender-6 is no longer the last word in combat. The defending-8 on the other hand, well...

• This version of Risk lets you use intersting phrases, such as, "I'm going to attack Western Austrailia... FROM THE MOON!!!". Yes, The moon. All those guys on Siam are looking mighty useless about now, huh Napolean?

One last thing, if anyone reading this blog has any old 1970's edition of Risk, could you dig up the rules for me? there was a dispute about when you have to delcare how many dice you're rolling. In every game I've played, this must be decided before you roll, but my host thinks differently. After the rules confirmed his wrongness, he claimed that they changed the rules in later editions. Has anyone else seen this rule before? I learned to play on a 1980's game where the pieces where all roman numerals (the best pieces were the roman numerals, IMO) but he played on an earlier version with the plastic 'y' and '*' shaped pieces. If you've seen them, you know what I'm talking about. Also, check for any rule about how one has to place bonus armies gained from controling a continent onto that continent only.